Tributes from former colleagues, fans and fellow sports journalists to the legendary BBC football commentator John Motson have been reflecting on his fondness for Barnet Football Club where the young Motson cut his teeth as a cub reporter on the Barnet Press.
Motson, who has died at the age of 77, began his journalistic career on Barnet’s much-respected former weekly newspaper when he was 18, the start of a life- time association with the town.
Such was his enthusiasm for playing and watching football that he never forgot the club and its players – and he also left a lasting footballing legacy.
A team that Motson helped to establish in the 1960s, the Roving Reporters Club, is still going strong in the Barnet and District Sunday League.
As Motson’s career as a broadcaster took off – and he became the voice of football on BBC Television – Barnet fans were always delighted and amused when Barnet got a name check in his commentaries.
Motson was educated at a Methodist boarding school at Bury St Edmunds and started a school newspaper called The Phoenix. On leaving at 18 he joined the Barnet Press in 1963 and made friendships that lasted a lifetime.
A colleague at the time in display advertising was Denis Burnham, who lives in Potters Bar, and who was due to have had lunch with Motson the week before he died.
“We were friends for 60 years and met up several times a year. Back in the 1960s we had such a good time together at the Barnet Press and our office in the High Street.
“He was great friends with another Barnet Press sports reporter, Roger Jones, who became sports editor and who died a couple of years ago.
“Between them they founded their own team, the Roving Reporters Club.
“I remember one day Motty and another reporter Jonathan Long were on court reporting duty. But there was no sitting that afternoon, so they went down to the Barnet Odeon to see Goal! – the newly-released film of England’s victory in the 1966 World Cup.”
Mr Burnham was not all surprised that Motson, who left Barnet in 1967 to join the Sheffield Morning Telegraph, reached the top of his profession.
“He had a great talent for writing, and was incredibly personable and witty.
“After he got his break with the BBC with that brilliant commentary of the Hereford United v Newcastle FA Cup replay in 1972 -- when Hereford won 2-1 against all expectations – you could see he was going to make it.
“Just look at the statistics: he was commentator at 29 FA Cup Finals, 10 World Cups and 10 European Championships – that’s 40 years at the top.”
So extensive was Motson’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the back history of football, that he would often work in a mention of Barnet or an ex-Barnet player.
“Whenever he was commentating or being interviewed, we would always be listening out to see if Barnet popped up in some way or other,” said long-standing Barnet supporter Tony Swingler who attended his first match at Underhill at the age of 14 in 1966.
Mr Swingler is one of the many local fans who still mourn the demolition of the Underhill stadium in 2018 following Barnet FC’s move to The Hive, at Edgware.
“What really amused us was when Motty managed to work in a reference to the infamous slope at Underhill which was considered to be just about acceptable by the Football Association.
“If he was at a ground which had a sloping pitch, he somehow seemed able to slip in a line that if it had been any steeper than at Underhill in Barnet then the ground wouldn’t have been acceptable in the top four leagues.”
Motson kept in regular contact with his former colleagues at the Barnet Press, one of the oldest weekly newspapers in the country until it closures in 2017 after publication for 158 years.
He was a regular attender at staff re-unions. Jenny Kobish, who started work at the Barnet Press as a telephonist in the 1960s until she left in the mid-1980s, has many happy memories.
“Over the years we could tell the great affection he had for his old colleagues and for Barnet.
“At the last re-union six or seven years ago, he was having a great chat with everyone but then moved into the corner of the room to watch a live match on the tv.
“So, I have that final memory of him, sitting there, absolutely absorbed in the match. That was Motty all over.”
In his obituary in The Guardian – see above – Anthony Hayward described Motson’s teenage passions. He not only played in the Barnet and District Sunday League but was also a Barnet and Potters Bar youth table-tennis champion.
In his tribute in the Daily Mail, columnist Richard Littlejohn said he had always admired Motson because they both had a similar early career path: “local rag, local radio, freelancing”.
“I’ve bumped into Motty at Barnet’s old Underhill stadium where he cut his teeth as a cub reporter on the now defunct local paper.
“And there you have the essence of the man – Barnet, Hereford, Sutton United. All a million miles from Barcelona, Highbury, and the San Siro, which Motson also graced with distinction over the years.
“He never lost touch with the grass roots, these days so sadly neglected as the rich clubs get richer and the poor get poorer.”
In his farewell, Dave Kidd, chief sportswriter for The Sun, said that decades after first reporting football for the Barnet Press, Motson remained a true fan of the game.
“In his later years he was a regular presence at Stevenage FC, where he could enjoy games with a minimum of attention.”
In his four years with the Barnet Press, Motson shared flats with fellow reporters in Finchley and Barnet. In later years he lived in St Albans, and most recently at Little Brickhill near Milton Keynes.
BBC News Online said that Motson spent his last night in his local pub, The George at Little Brickhill, watching a football match.
Landlords Simon and Louise Babikian said he came in three or four times a week.
“The night before he passed, he came into the pub to watch a match and sat with his mates having a beer and talking us through the game, as he would most evenings.
“He seemed to really enjoy himself. John was our friend, so we haven’t just lost a legend, we have lost a friend.”
